heirloom and heritage varieties

Not saying anything surprising here, but I have so much admiration and respect for the people who work in the cottage industry of bringing back bygone seeds and food varieties. Tomatoes. Wheat. Apples and fruits. Hemp. Anything that they take from a fascination to hobby to community to small business. I also know the world seed banks are always busy doing this sort of thing, but these people who are outside of the agriculture industry and system who carve themselves a niche to play and advance their own interests.

Really cool stuff. While on the whole we do not suffer from food shortages here in the west, we have lost variety. I remember hearing that there use to be 100's of varieties of apples (as an example) now there are much fewer.

Also heard a story about Jefferson's garden at Monticello and the meticulous cataloging he did. One of the things hey noted we're the hundreds and hundreds of varieties o the same kind of vegetable or fruit.

Really cool stuff. While on the whole we do not suffer from food shortages here in the west, we have lost variety. I remember hearing that there use to be 100's of varieties of apples (as an example) now there are much fewer.

Also heard a story about Jefferson's garden at Monticello and the meticulous cataloging he did. One of the things hey noted we're the hundreds and hundreds of varieties o the same kind of vegetable or fruit.

I believe it was an episode of A Chef's Life that featured a guy who had 200 varieties of apples, many of which not readily grown for centuries.